Now You See Him, Now You Don't

He is asked about the wedding that his mother gave him, the $5,000 affair that was performed in Rabbi Louis Binstock's study on July 12, 1947, at Temple Sholom, when Bob married the former Harriet Pogorzelski. And afterward the posh reception at the Belmont Hotel. "That's correct, also," Irsay says, barely missing a beat. "I had two weddings. That was for him," he adds, talking about his father, or stepfather, as Irsay refers to him. "Maybe my mother converted to Jewish, I don't know. I've had more problems finding out who I am and what I am. Everything's so confusing in my life."

Nor did Irsay graduate, as his biography contends. According to an Illinois spokesman, he attended the school for the fall semester of 1940, the spring and fall semesters of 1941 and the summer session of 1942, leaving without a degree. He enlisted in the Marines on Oct. 23, 1942, and was discharged on April 3, 1943 as a sergeant—not a lieutenant—without having served overseas. No medals, no decorations. A Marine spokesman could provide no further details.

Irsay couldn't either. "I was in the Army and the Navy and the Marines," he said recently. "The Navy assigned me to the Seabees. I saw minor action. I don't want to talk about it."

In 1946, Irsay's father took him into the family business, the Acord Ventilating Company. He worked there as a salesman, eventually making bids on projects and assuming the title of secretary.

Irsay left his father's company on Dec. 31, 1951, amid all sorts of unsavory accusations by his mother and brother, receiving as part of his settlement a Caterpillar Tractor Company account that he had landed for Acord, a building used in connection with that account, two automobiles, a truck and a quantity of shop equipment that would enable him to go right into business without assuming a large debt. Irsay also lured away five of his father's employees, and he had his own numerous contacts, which, by written agreement, he was free to pursue.

Young, ambitious, blessed with a superb knack for salesmanship, Bob was off and running with the Robert Irsay Company. His father's company went into immediate decline, and his brother Ron had to quit college to try to help salvage it. Two and a half years later, Acord Ventilating was out of business.

"Bob never acknowledged us," recalls Ron. "The last time I had any meaningful contact with him was—I can tell you almost exactly—March or April of 1953. I was getting married in May, and he gave me 10 bucks when he saw me, saying something like 'I hear you're engaged.' I had to give it back to him. I told him he wasn't going to be invited to the wedding because I didn't want a family squabble. He said, 'Have it your way, kid. You've got to choose. You can come in with me, or stay with them. You can't have it both ways.' I told him, 'No choice, Bob. See ya 'round.' "

Gene Bednarz, a vice-president of Linear Flow Systems, a subsidiary of the Robert Irsay Company (Robert no longer has any connection with it), was one of those who left Acord to follow Bob. "After Bob left his father, he began trying to hide his Jewishness," Bednarz says. "I don't know what prompted him to do that, unless it was out of spite for his father. I wasn't aware of any discrimination in our business. He's tough to figure out sometimes. I've seen him spend a thousand dollars entertaining a guy one night, then the next day turn down a $5 raise to a guy making $95 a week.

"Bob was a helluva guy in those years. He had great charisma. By 1960 we were a force to be reckoned with. Bob was a gambler and very innovative. He was the first guy to build a big new plant out in the suburbs. We were the first company to bid on jobs on the basis of rough outline specifications rather than finished plans, a practice that today is commonplace. He hired a lot of young superintendents and paid them over scale, and he had good rapport with his workers. This, as I say, was in the early years, the formative years, before he was rich. Before he realized that money gave him power."

"He's a real dynamic guy," says a vice-president of the Robert Irsay Company who first joined the firm back in the mid-'60s, and who asked that his name not be used. "You hear a lot of stories about what a rat he is, but if you stay close to him, you'll probably come out a winner." The man remembers the time there was a Teamsters strike in the mid-'60s. "Bob came by our offices and asked around for volunteers to drive a truck to deliver some materials to a site," he says. "I told him, 'You're crazy, but I'll drive if you'll drive.' He said, 'I'll meet you here at seven in the morning.' Not only did he show up, but he gave me the suburban delivery, and he made the delivery to the site in the city of Chicago. It took a lot of guts to drive through a Teamsters picket line in this city then.